Monday, September 18, 2017

Mapping the Distant Lands of DIY

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Modular design is great. You find something you like, find a place for it on the map, cross it over with something else, and eventually you have your own personalized sandbox adventure world.This map was all pieced together in Hexographer under the auspices of Sunday afternoon and is filled with a wide variety of stuff I like. I might use it in the future, I might not, maybe someone else will - regardless, it was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Also, there are way too many talented people out there. This map features:

This is so cool. The original map for Chaos Gods come to Meatlandia had something similar, with signs pointing to Yoon Suin, Slumbering Ursine Dunes, Voivodja, DFD, and more but in the end didn't know about the rights. This is much cooler anyway.

Most of the entries on the list are on the map under their direct name, except for minor regional locations. Non-indicative ones I can see are the Chocolate Factory (Blood in the Chocolate), Jukai City / Melanic Moors / QuVrst / Phyrric Plains (Fire on the Velvet Horizon, Elatior (Maze of the Blue Medusa), Denethix / Mt. Rendon / Lanthanide Wastes (ASDE), and everything in the southeast corner is from Yoon-Suin

This is actually almost exactly how I built my current campaign setting. The Slumbering Ursine Dunes are west of the Deep Carbon Observatory, which is north-west of Stonehell, which is south-west of the monastery from 'Horror on the Hill', which is south of the hidden valley from 'Night's Dark Terror', which is south of Deathfrost Mountain, and so on. My most recent session saw the group stumbling into Qelong...

I love this. I think many OSR GMs have their own version of this sort of thing, although this is particularly comprehensive and well-done.

I'd love to see a compilation of these...One-Page Settings! It starts with settings that blend three different settings, and works its way up from there. Notes for interactions between settings are bulleted on the map.